A long-running glow in the autumn dark
For many years, as October turned to November and the Dyfi Valley evenings drew in, Machynlleth answered the darkness in its own way: with a lantern parade. The Machynlleth Lantern Parade became one of the town's best-loved traditions — a community procession of handmade lanterns carried through the streets, past the shops of Maengwyn Street and the great clock tower at the centre of town. It was free, it was homemade, and it belonged to everyone who turned up with a lantern in hand. Timed for the point in the year when Mid Wales nights come early, it turned the gloomiest stretch of the calendar into something to look forward to — the kind of event that asked nothing of the town but its participation, and got it, year after year.
The 2025 procession, and the pause that followed
The parade's final edition took place in November 2025, after organiser Zoe Matthews stepped down. The town gave it quite a send-off: more than 2,000 people came out for the last procession — a turnout roughly equal to the entire population of Machynlleth. That looked like the end of it. In the event a new group of volunteers has since taken the tradition on under a new name, as set out below, so this page stands as a thank-you to everyone who ever carried a lantern down Maengwyn Street — and above all to the organiser who kept it going for so long. Our what's on page carries the current dates.
What made it special
Plenty of towns hold festivals; fewer make them. The lanterns in Machynlleth's parade were made by the community itself, and that was the heart of it — the event's magic lay not in professional spectacle but in the sight of a whole town's handiwork bobbing down its own high street in the dark. Lantern parades exist elsewhere in Britain, but few can have belonged so completely to their town: here the makers, the carriers and the crowd were largely the same people. In a place already known for doing things its own way — this is, after all, the town that hosts a nationally loved comedy festival and a market chartered in 1291 — the parade fitted perfectly: small in scale, big in feeling.
A new committee, and a procession for 2026
There is a postscript. In August 2026 the Cambrian News reported that a new committee of local volunteers had formed to carry the tradition on, renaming it the Bro Ddyfi Lantern Procession and setting a date of Saturday 31 October 2026, with lantern-making workshops through October across Machynlleth and the Dyfi villages. A spokesperson was quoted saying the procession "belongs to the whole community and we want it to remain that way". Treat a volunteer-run date as intended rather than fixed — but the lanterns look likely to be lit again.
How the parade worked
The shape of it was simple and repeated year after year. Free lantern-making workshops ran through October half-term in borrowed rooms around the town — in 2025 at the Wynnstay, at Sploj on Bank Lane and at the Taj Mahal community hub — on a pay-what-you-can basis. The procession set off at about half past six: in 2025 from the Owain Glyndŵr Centre on Maengwyn Street, along the high street to the football pitch, where about ten minutes of fireworks closed the night. Samba Dyfi drummed the crowd along.
Small money, large turnout
The scale of it was always out of proportion to the budget. Organisers put the annual cost at around £4,000, most of it fireworks, raised by crowdfunding and a pay-what-you-can donation on the night; the final parade still drew more than 2,000 people through steady rain. Accounts of its beginnings differ: one local report traces homemade lantern processions here to 2003, while the organiser who latterly ran it had done so since 2011.
Older Welsh reasons to light the dark
A procession of lights at the turn of October into November sits on top of much older Welsh habits. Calan Gaeaf, the winter kalend, marked the end of summer and the start of winter, and its eve was kept with feasting, music and bonfires; the National Museum Wales records that as the fires died people would chant their way home for fear of the Hwch Ddu Gwta, the tail-less black sow said to take whoever left last. The parade never claimed that inheritance — but the instinct is the same. More on local custom is on our Welsh language page.
What else is on in Machynlleth
Though the lanterns have been packed away, the town's calendar remains a busy one. The Wednesday market still fills Maengwyn Street each week as it has for over 730 years; the Machynlleth Comedy Festival takes over the town every early-May bank holiday; Gŵyl Machynlleth brings a week of music to the Tabernacle each late August; and mid-September brings the Glyndŵr Day celebrations, when Gŵyl Glyndŵr marks the legacy of the man crowned Prince of Wales in this town in 1404. You'll find the full round-up — and any news of the lantern parade's future — on our what's on page.
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